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More big aliens, and a woman who looked meaner than the rest put together. The alien with ice-blond hair who’d spoken watched Rann with an expression of impatience.

Rann made a gesture at him that she assumed was offensive. It certainly looked it. “Yeah, yeah, Ryke. I got this.”

Then he looked down at her again, and the smile on his face changed.

Her breath caught. There was no teasing in his eyes now. Just him, looking at her as though he wanted every difficult, suspicious, stubborn bit of her.

And God help her, she could see a future there. All the futures she’d stopped letting herself think about. Tomorrow morning. The morning after that. Rann there when she opened her eyes, still taking up too much room, still looking far too pleased with himself.

Her hand flattened over his chest. She wanted it. She wanted all of it.

“Blythe, my kelarris, I love you. I have since the moment I saw you.”

Then he bent his head and kissed her.

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His mouth was warm and gentle, and for a few seconds Blythe couldn’t do anything but hold on.

She’d expected desperation, but Rann kissed her slowly, his hand cradling the back of her head as though they had all the time in the world. Like he was taking the time to memorize everything about the way her mouth felt under his.

Her fingers tightened on his suit. God, she’d wanted… needed this. Not the rescue or the audience or any of the fucking disaster that had come before it. Just a man who wanted her enough to come back. To not leave.

His arm tightened around her waist, and he pulled her up against his larger, harder body. Heat rolled through her as he deepened the kiss, parting her lips with a hard sweep of his tongue.

A rough sound caught in his throat as she opened for him and he tilted his head, sliding his tongue against hers in an erotic slide that nearly had her forgetting they weren’t alone in the room.

Then a high-pitched scream cut through the room.

“Oh my God, don’t let it get me!”

Rann’s mouth paused against hers, but she kept her fingers hooked into his suit for another second. No, this wasn’t happening. Whoever it was could deal with their own problems.

There was another stifled scream.

Sighing, she turned her head. Boss Goat was advancing on Joe, the goat’s heavy head lowered as his hooves clicked against the floor. Joe scrambled backward until his back hit the sofa behind him. He tried to go farther, but another goat jumped on the sofa’s back, the two goats pinning him in.

A chuckle escaped her.

Boss goat stopped just short of him and scraped one hoof across the floor. Joe flinched. If he could have disappeared up his own asshole, she had no doubt he would have.

“Okay, handsome. Leave it,” she called out, and Rann glanced down at her.

“The goat,” she clarified, patting his chest. “Come on, Boss. He’s not worth damaging the furniture.”

Boss Goat looked over his shoulder at her.

She’d been on the receiving end of some unimpressed looks in her life. That one was right up there. Chuffing hard, he turned back to Joe and stamped a hoof hard enough that she felt it through the floor.

Joe whimpered and tried to become one with the sofa cushions.

“Boss…” she said warningly.

The goat chuffed again and backed off slowly. He shot her another look to make it clear that it was his decision and absolutely nothing to do with her telling him. She bit the inside of her cheek as he settled a little way from Joe, still watching him.

Across the room, Martel was watching the proceedings with his arms folded over his broad chest and a small, confused smile on his lips. Then his gaze shifted past her and Rann, and he laughed.

“Okay, now it all makes sense.”